In: Finance
The bird-in-the-hand argument, which states that a dividend today is safer than the uncertain prospect of a capital gain tomorrow, is often used to justify high dividend payout ratios.
Explain the fallacy behind this argument. How might the position of an internal or external stakeholder differ on this point and why?
A dividend today is safer than the uncertain prospect of a capital gain tomorrow. This statement is often used to justify high dividend payout ratios.
As we all know the future is uncertain.It is possible that the company is earning good profits at [resent but in future May be the financial position of the company is not good so there is a risk. So external stakeholders want the dividend Payout ratio high as more as they get dividend the more the amount invested is recovered in return So they want a high dividend payout ratio.
But Internal Stakeholder that is board of directors , Staff etc they think if the company is not distributed the dividend then they can invest it in other investment or earn huge profit. If they distribute the amount or profit as dividend then what they can invest So both the internal and external stakeholder differ on this point
The reason is due to that the external investor does not want to take risk and also they have a opportunity to invest the amount at higher return more than the company Return. And similiarly the internal stakeholder wants to take risk and earn more and more profit by investing the amount of dividend in the business.